The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communication, and more particularly to allocating resources in a wireless network among a plurality of radios.
Conventional wireless radios communicate in either a half-duplex mode or a full-duplex mode. In a half-duplex mode, a single radio channel transmits a communication from a first radio to a second radio during a first time period. The same radio channel transmits a communication from the second radio to the first radio during a second period of time that does not overlap with the first period of time. That is, the first communication device and the second communication device cannot transmit and receive simultaneously. In a full-duplex mode, a first channel is used for transmission of communications from a first radio to a second radio, and a second channel is used for transmission of communications from the second radio to the first radio. Accordingly, both the first radio and the second radio can transmit and receive simultaneously.
In an ad-hoc wireless mesh network, radios can negotiate and reserve channel resources among themselves by exchanging “request” and “grant” messages in a reservation-based resource allocation policy. In a reservation-based resource allocation policy, a channel is divided into control slots and data slots. Channel resource negotiation events take place among control slots, whereas data slots are used for user information communication, for example Internet protocol (IP) data. When a single communication channel is not sufficient for sharing among radios, the radios can all share multiple communication channels. However, conventional ad-hoc radios are half-duplex. Accordingly, two levels of channel resource negotiations must take place when sharing multiple communication channels. Accordingly, as a number of radios in a wireless network increases, the number of available data slots decreases to accommodate additional control slots. As a result, the data throughput of the wireless network diminishes as the number of radios in the wireless network increases.